Demythologizing the Fur Trade

The fur trade has long been a cliché of early Canadian history. It lodges in our minds as a romantic but slightly tedious haze of canoes, beads and blankets, beaver hats, carefree voyageurs, stolid Scots traders, untamed Indians and, of course, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. For Canada the fur trade might play the role of the Wild West in American historical mythology, but, with snow and barter instead of dust and bullets, it is a myth that has never been transformed into successful novels or films.

Behind the mythology lies the fact that commerce in the fur of northern animals was a major force in shaping the early European history of the country. It opened Canada to European exploration, in the same way that oil and mineral resources are today fuelling the metastasization of roads and mining camps across the Arctic. It also provided the context for developing relations between Europeans and the indigenous occupants of northern North America. When alien...